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Propose Pinsk pogrom. Bad titles of some articles is no justification to create new articles under such names. --Irpen 21:27, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

It's not a bad title. I've copied it after Polish wiki. Also checked Google books for usage. --Lysy 21:50, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Object. The use of pogrom for this event is specifically criticized by sources, for example see Piotrowski where Mongenthau's commission stated it was not a pogrom (), Bendersky ( where a US officer on scence states it was not a pogrom, and Davies which calls it a "so-called Pogrom" (). Also, please don't mix up the murder of 35 Jews, discussed by quite a few sources, with some other controversies of the Polish-Soviet War.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  21:58, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Luczynski

Davies (see above) notes that the order to shoot was given by a lieutant. Bendersky notes that 'major Luczynski' was the town commander, but doesn't state he gave the order. My quick search show that future general Aleksander Narbut-Łuczyński served as a colonel during the PSWar, but I can't find anything more in online sources, for now I suggest rephrasing the text so that - per our sources - we don't associate Łuczyński with the order itself; I can't find anything on his promotion, but the current article implies he was promoted for ordering a massacre - certainly a mistaken allegation.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  22:32, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't expect his promotion was associated with the massacre. Maybe this should be rephrased. --Lysy 22:44, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Further, Morgenthau talks about major Łuszyński - or perhaps its a wikisource typo? Anyway, looking for a shorter name (Aleksander Łuczyński), I found more data: according to this, he was promoted to colonel in 1919 and general in 1924.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  23:03, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Hospital massacre?

The lead states: Also arrested and shot where members of the medical personnel of the Pinsk hospital. The reference laks most info (full name of the author, page citation, isbn). Also, another reference is non-English (Документы и материалы по истории советско-польских отношений.), please translate. Further, per WP:LEAD lead should summarize the article - so the hospital massacre should be discussed in article; even so what's the connection of this alleged hospital massacre to Pinsk massacre, I don't know - it is not mentioned in a single source I can find (the current text event doesn't state who shot whom in the hospital - Poles Jews, Soviet Poles, Poles Soviets...?).-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  22:36, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I could not find any information on the hospital massacre. Maybe some of the murdered Jews were the hospital personnel ? --Lysy 22:49, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Meltyukhov speaks of murder of Jews arrested at the meeting separately from the murder of the medical personnel. Also, that would be not a unique event. Medics were also murdered at the Berdychiv hospital. Perhaps they where Jews as there were many Jewish medics and Polish advances were notorious by anti-Jewish atrocities. I recommend Babel's diary recently translated into English and published in NY. --Irpen 22:55, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, does this belong here ? --Lysy 23:01, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that the current reference in body is acceptable, and the events can be also mentioned in the Controversies of the Polish-Soviet War article. Both sides claimed that the other has done various attrocities; for example there were reports of Soviets massacring Polish hospital staff and patients near Mohylew in 1918 (). The event certainly is not notable enough to mention in lead, as it is not mentioned by any other source.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  23:08, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Meltyukhov does not say that the hospital was in Pinsk. He may be describing a completely separate event. --Lysy 05:58, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Huh? --Irpen 07:47, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Here is what he writes:

• Занятие городов и населенных пунктов сопровождалось самочинными расправами военных с местными представителями советской власти, а также еврейскими погромами, выдававшимися за акты искоренения большевизма.
• Так, после занятия Пинека по приказу коменданта польского гарнизона на месте, без суда было расстреляно около 40 евреев, пришедших для молитвы, которых приняли за собрание большевиков.
• Был арестован медицинский персонал госпиталя и несколько санитаров расстреляны.
• Хотя эти факты получили широкую огласку, военное командование отказало гражданской администрации в допуске к документам. Преступление было оправдано нервным напряжением офицеров в боях с большевиками, а прямой его виновник — переведен в другое место с повышением.

The second and third sentence are the illustrations for the first sentence and they are not clearly interrelated. He does not even mention if the people in the hospital were Jewish or why they were arrested. So far, it does not seem related to the subject of the article. --Lysy 08:03, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Please restore the author's paragraphing. --Irpen 08:13, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Huh? --Lysy 08:46, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

"A paragraph is a self-contained unit of a discourse in writing dealing with a particular point or idea, or the words of an author." --Irpen 09:01, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I've bulleted the sentences for easier reference. Their order is not changed. What I'm trying to convey it that there is no clear relation between sentences 2 and 3. Also, about the hospital, we don't know who was arrested, when, where, by whom, why, if there was any trial, how many prisoners were executed, and why. This is pretty useless for the purpose of the article about the Pinsk massacre. --Lysy 09:33, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I am sure that the second phrase is continuation of the first bullet point otherwise the text does not make sense Alex Bakharev 10:16, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but it's the third bullet that is the problem. If read together with the second sentence, it could suggest that the hospital was in Pinsk, personnel was Jewish, and was shot without trial. Neither of these has to be true. We need another source, which describes what happened more specifically if we want to link the hospital story with the Pinsk massacre. Otherwise they are unrelated. --Lysy 11:13, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

As I cannot read Russian, I am hoping you can answer the following questions:

• does M. state it was 'Pinsk hospital' specifically or only that it was some hospital local to the area?
• does M. state nationality/ethnicity of the victims and perpatrators?
• does M. state the number of victims?

English translation would be appreciated. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:01, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

No, all he says is: Был арестован медицинский персонал госпиталя и несколько санитаров расстреляны, which means "Medical personnel of a hospital was arrested and several orderlies (or combat medics?) were shot." That's all. --Lysy 17:33, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

So in essense he is not saying they were shot by Poles, nor that they were killed (possibly only wounded)?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  18:44, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

No, he implies that they were shot dead by Poles. The incident happened during "capture of towns and settlements". In the previous statement he briefly describes the Pinsk massacre, this is why Irpen believes that the hospital incident is related. However no whereabouts or other details of the incident are provided, just the statement that I have translated before. --Lysy 19:13, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

The source that Meltyukhov cites for that section is Документы и материалы по истории советско-польских отношений. That may sound familiar to some because we already once had extensive discussion about a controversial quote supposedly backed by that source, which in the end turned out not to exist in the actual publication as referenced (see ]). In Polish the title of that publication is Z dziejów stosunków polsko-radzieckich; studia i materiały. (I am concluding here these are Polish and Russian language versions of the same book published in parallel, as would be reasonable for this kind of compilation, but correct me if I am wrong in this).

I invite everyone here to consider the bias inherent to these volumes that were published in the 1960s and the 1970s. At that time, it was the standard line of Soviet and Communist Polish historiography to portray the Second Polish Republic that existed in 1918-1939 as inherently immoral, and its conflict with the Bolsheviks in 1919-1921 as the blackest of evils. The fact that Meltyukhov is relying on that publication to back up his claims speaks volumes about the quality of his historical research and his caliber as a historian. In a nutshell, it appears he does not seem to have time to go after original documents in the archives, and instead is using what was conveniently compiled by the biased Communist Soviet and Polish scholars. Balcer 03:01, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Number of victims

Most of the sources agree, that the number of victims were 35. Do we have any significant sources that claim otherwise ? --Lysy 22:41, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Meltyukhov gives 40. --Irpen 22:50, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Does he give an exact number, or "around 40" ? (btw, out of curiosity: does he explain how he arrived at this number?) --Lysy 22:54, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Somehow I did not realise it was available online. Indeed all he says is "around 40". So simply 35 is "around 40" for this author. We can be grateful that 40 is not "around 50" and 50 is not "around 100". --Lysy 06:09, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

? --Irpen 06:13, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, we don't know why Meltyukhov chose not to give the exact number. But indeed it's not our role to speculate about this here. --Lysy 06:49, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

That's interesting, however all other sources give 35. His differing number may be given in body, but there is no reason to discuss his dissenting view in lead.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  23:12, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Related discussion

Pinsk massacre was discussed some time ago at Talk:History_of_Jews_in_Poland#1918-1939.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  16:58, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Davies in WERS on Pinsk

I found online a (Polish edition) citation about this incident: . Interesting points: 1) most but not all victims were Jewish; American lieutant Foster confirmed that Polish army acted withing acceptable limits (considering it was near frontline during a war) and finally, that there are still doubts whether it wasn't, indeed, a Bolshevik meeting after all.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  02:51, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Sweet! But because of your past incidents of sources falsification, I am sure it is not asking for too much as to get your source and your reading of it verified by a third party. --Irpen 02:57, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Irpen, if you are accusing another editor of multiple offenses as grave as source falsification on an article talkpage, you really must provide relevant diffs to back up your claim. Common decency requires this.

Anyway, the link by Piotrus points to newsgroup post from 1998. Care to explain how he could have falsified this? Of course, the original poster might be putting up incorrect information, but if that is the case, that is not the fault of Piotrus. Anyway, now that you made it an issue, I am sure someone will check the original book. Balcer 04:06, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Irpen, please provide diffs or apology for this appalling personal attack.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  04:14, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

And again, we are hearing this Personal Attack accusations to deflect from the topic. I am right now busy writing up an evidence for your ArbCom as the fact that you continued the behavior with unabashed zeal gave me an impression that you think you have some sort of impunity. The recent series of events was the last straw to make me set aside some time to collect diffs for your evidence page. So, for now, I leave the articles to others. As for examples of yours sources manipulation, here is one recent example and here is another. --Irpen 04:23, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

For anyone interested, the second link points to a talk page, in which a non-native Polish speaker mean-spiritedly accused Piotrus of making imperfect translations from Polish to English. In response, I can only say that good translation is not equivalent to word for word translation.

This last edit illustrates quite well Irpen's attitude here, and nothing more needs to be said, as any impartial observer will make his own conclusions. I would only like to point out to him that Arbcom is likely to investigate the actions of more than just Piotrus. Balcer 04:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Balcer, if you read an entry of David Gerard who Piotrus brought to his ArbCom by asking secretly over IRC, my behavior is already being investigated by an IRC-club. Besides, this is not news to me. I really enjoy having their attention for quite some time lately. Your comment about second incident is interesting. So, you admit that the translation of sources was not exactly an exact one. But what about the first example? Anyway, more later. --Irpen 04:39, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

In the first example, anyone can read for themselves and draw their own conclusions, so my comments are unnecessary. In the second, most people don't speak Polish and hence cannot make their own judgements. I wanted to help with that. Anyway, as you surely must know, there is no such thing as an "exact" translation, especially between languages as distinct as Polish and English. Balcer 04:50, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

This entire thread strikes me as being much ado about nothing. However, Davies tells us in both the Polish translation and in the original English version of "White Eagle, Red Star", that out of approximately 24,000 inhabitants in Pinsk, 20,000 were Jewish. If some of the 35 victims were not Jewish, what does that mean? During the Kielce Pogrom some of the victims were not Jewish, so what? What is however more telling, Balcer, is that P.P. suggests that maybe the meeting was a Bolshevik meeting afterall. Nowhere does Davies say this or confirm this. In fact Davies states that the pupose of the meeting was never clarified. So to suggest that he did in WERS, is a falsification of the source. Is that understandable? Am I wrong to suspect that somewhere, somehow, the author of Zydokomuna is trying to suggest that if it was indeed a Bolshevik meeting, then it would be O.K. to murder these people. If I'm wrong, what is the significance that it may have been a Jewish-Bolshevik meeting "after all"? How does that lessen this horific crime that heralds what took place in Europe 22 years later? As for the ArbCom (which for a brief moment I hoped was going to die out on its own for lack of interest) it has now become some kind of battle ground where some of the participants are determined to censor other Wikipedians because they don't like what they read on the talk pages when it doesn't agree with their POV. My spin on the ArbCom is dealing about what people put in and remove from the articles, since I could care less what they say on the talk pages. Just the same this tidbit is quite revealing and Irpen is correct that Davies himself doesn't support what P.P. is claiming he wrote. For those interested, the material that I'm using is WERS, 1972, pgs. 47-48. Dr. Dan 19:30, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Dr. Dan, please don't twist my statements. I don't "suggests that maybe the meeting was a Bolshevik meeting afterall", I wrote that there "are still doubts whether it wasn't, indeed, a Bolshevik meeting after all". Davies writes that: chociaz charakter nielegalnego zebrania nigdy nie zostal wyjasniony (opisywane je rozmaicie: jako spotkanie komunistycznej komorki, zebranie miejscowej spoldzielni badz Komitetu Pomocy Amerykanskiej), which translates, roughtly, as "although the character of illegal meeting was never explained (it was described differently: as a meeting of communist cell, local cooperative or American Relief Committee)". Therefore Davies indeed notes that there are still doubts whether it was or wasn't a Bolshevik (communist) meeting, he doesn't endorse this version, but he doesn't disprove it, neither. As for 'not all the victims being Jewish', it is an important note, as it rules out that Polish army specifically targeted Jews, or exectuted only Jewws, thus confirming Morg. report that the excesses were not anti-Semitic, but rather, political (anti-Bolshevik). Your allegations that I support this tragic event are very offensive and I ask for an apology.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:09, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

For starters, I am not twisting anything. If you'll permit me to use English on the English Misplaced Pages, Davies: WERS pg. 48, "-and although the nature of the illegal meeting, variously described as a Bolshevik cell, an assembly of the local co-operative society, and a meeting of the Committee for American Relief, was never clarified, the publicity reflected badly on the Polish Army." By saying there are still doubts whether it wasn't, indeed, a Bolshevik meeting after all, under the header Davies in WERS on Pinsk, is to imply that that's Davies' own conclusion, whereas it is not Davies' conclusion, but your own conclusion. Maybe it even was that kind of a meeting, but don't tell us that that is what Davies said. Now as for an apology, I'll be happy to make one when you explain, what the significance of these people possibly attending a "Bolshevik meeting" has to do with this crime. Is that justification for murdering them? Davies tell us in WERS that Łuzyński ordered these hostages to "be summarily shot to make an example. The town was pacified." Dr. Dan 20:41, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Morgenthau

Mission of The United States to Poland, Henry Morgenthau, Sr. Report From Wikisource

This article is not linked to by any other article on the English Wikisource (it is an Orphaned page). It should be determined whether a link to this page should be added to another page or whether this page is a candidate for deletion. Links from other Wikimedia projects, such as Misplaced Pages, do not count. See Category:Unlinked for guidance on choosing pages to link to this page. See Wikisource:Deletion policy for guidance on whether this page is a candidate for deletion.
--Poeticbent  talk  15:39, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, from what I have read in other sources it seems like 'the real thing', it was uploaded by a reliable user - User:Ttyre, I'll drop him a note about this issue, hopefully he will remember the source. PS. I did notice one problem with wikisource documents - some mispelling, suggesting a use of OCR soft at some point (for example, Crown Commander instead of Town Commander).-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:52, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Here is the deal, in a nutshell:

Aside from material aid, Washington bestowed tokens of political favor upon the Poles. ... To protect Poland's international reputation against widespread, if exaggerated, accusations of mistreatment of her large Jewish minority, Washington dispatched an investigatory commission led by Henry Morgenthau, one of the most prominent American Jewish political figures. Morgenthau was selected for the job precisely because he was known to be sympathetic to Poland, and his report largely exculpated the Polish government, exactly as expected.

From Poland, the United States, and the Stabilization of Europe, 1919-1933 By Neal Pease, Oxford University Press, 1986, page 10.

I hope this confirms to the doubters the reliability of this report. However, if we do use the information it contained, in fairness we should make clear its favorable view of the Polish government's attitude towards anti-Jewish violence. Balcer 23:14, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Good points, although it may be worth mentioning that Henry Morgenthau, Sr. was of Jewish origin himself. Also, please note that wikisource has two reports: first one by HENRY MORGENTHAU, second one (!) by two other members of the commission, Brig. Gen. Edgar Jadwin and Homer H. Johnson. As other American military reports cited, it seems to be broadly favourable to Poland. PS. Anyway, article on Morgenthau report is needed. Any takers?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  23:46, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Good points? although it may be worth mentioning that Henry Morgenthau, Sr. was of Jewish origin himself. And the point of that observation is what, P.P.? Balcer would you please throw that one into his ArbCom proceeding? Dr. Dan 01:16, 31 May 2007 (UTC)